Up, up
by StardustSage
Summary: A simple request as a child can mean so much more when one is grown, just like a memory and the gift of a lifelong love of the stars.


Twilight sat like a fine silken cloth over the city, a stunning gray blue, with gold all around the edges. Warm air blew through, bringing the smell of sea salt and jasmine through the cracked concrete streets and glistening glass skyscrapers. It wafted gently through the streets, familiar and yet sensational to all who could detect it through the smog of Urbana. One of the lucky few was sitting on a rooftop overlooking the dark squares protruding into the sky and sighing wistfully. As he drew a breath it came into his nose, wrapping around him with care until he slowly released his breath, letting the amber eyes hidden behind the thick lenses open to watch the globe of light leave for the night. 

Dib tilted his head as a star appeared above him, a soft pinprick of light. A smile appeared on his face as he looked fondly upon it. The truth, he knew, was that the 'star' was a planet, Venus, in fact. However, as one of the old home movies hidden away in the back of his closet had shown, it was the first 'star' he had pointed out to his mother when she took him stargazing so many years ago.

_'Look mom, it's a star!' he would point out gleefully._

_'Yes, good eyes Dib! Isn't it pretty?' she would ask in her beautiful, crystalline voice._

_'It's so bright... what a bright star...' he would mumble aloud in wonderment. Membrane would attempt to say something at this point from behind the camera, but his wife would always turn and shush him with a grin on her face, making her round belly obvious. Gaz hadn't been born quite yet, but it would be soon. Then she would come up behind Dib and touch his shoulder affectionately and smile, although the camera could only see her long mauve locks from behind._

_'I wanna get closer!' he would suddenly exclaim. 'Bring me up, mommy, up!' He would always turn to her with the same begging eyes. She always turned to him in surprise. 'Up, up!' he begged again, lifting his arms. Smiling, she would carefully reach down and pick her little boy up, then lift him onto her shoulders._

Dib could always remember it perfectly. Her hair smelled of jasmine, and her hands wrapping around him, keeping his securely in place, smelled like sea salt. He had stared up in wonderment at the vast sky above him, seeing all the hundreds of thousands of stars in amazement.

_'Wow...' he would whisper, 'there's so many...'_

_'Aren't they beautiful?' she would whisper back excitedly, squeezing his little hands gently._

_He would nod. 'Why do they only come out at night? I wish they were there all the time.'_

_His mother would chuckle softly, petting his hair lovingly. 'They're always there. Even when you can't see them.'_

_'Even when I can't see them?' he would repeat. She always nodded sweetly and pulled him down, giving his a tender kiss on the forehead._

Dib sighed. He had lost her not too long after that. She had died in childbirth. However, aggrieved as he was, he could never blame Gaz for what happened. It was all a part of nature, he knew, but there was still an empty ache in his chest where she used to be. Perhaps that was why he loved the sky so much. It reminded him of some of their last memories together. Smiling, he closed his eyes and lifted his hands to the quickly darkening sky.

"Up, up," he breathed.

And suddenly he was warm, warm and happy, and he could feel her again. A warm sweetness, bathed in heavenly white, carrying him as he felt the cosmos rushing by, so close he could have reached out and touched it, skimming the dark with his fingertips, so near that he could have opened his mouth and tasted the metallic tang of stardust on his tongue. She was holding on to him, and he could feel her soft palms petting his hair just like she had, and he wanted it to never end, he wanted to stay up with her and the stars forever and ever.

But all to soon, he exhaled, the scent of sea salt and jasmine leaving his nostrils once again and the warmth leaving him with nothing but the night air. His eyelids opened to reveal thousands of stars swirling in front of him under a black, velvety cloth. The feeling of her hands went away, but there was still a gentle pressure on his forehead where lips were pressed not a second earlier. He quietly lowered his arms again, leaning back and resting on them, feeling weighted by gravity and his own skin. Yet when he looked up he couldn't help but smile. Even if he couldn't always see the stars, they were still there.

And so was she.


End file.
